Free The_Demons_Wife_ARC by Rick Hautala Page A

element of reality into the situation, and that was the last
thing she wanted.
    It was much
better simply to lie here in bed and dreamily run the palm of her hand all over
Samael’s chest and stomach. The muscles below the skin, cushioned by his flesh,
were like curved, metal plates. As sensual and erotic as all of this was, she
still felt strange about touching him…down there…where the junction of his
thighs and abdomen was as flat and smooth and hard as the rest of him. On some
level, the idea of a man not having any external genitalia freaked her out
whenever she thought about it, but she kept reminding herself that Samael was
no man…
    He was so much
more than a man.
    They lay in
bed side by side, listening to the silence and breathing in unison. Claire kept
dozing off and then awakening with a start. From time to time, Samael would
raise his hand and touch her, stroking her long red hair, brushing his fingers
through her curls and petting her, rubbing her hips, her belly, her thighs, her
breasts as if she were something rare and precious.
    “We have a lot
to talk about,” she whispered after a long while.
    His breathing
continued unabated, and she wondered if he had drifted off to sleep, or if he
was faking being asleep so he wouldn’t have to talk.
    Does he ever
need to sleep…He is, after all, a supernatural being…so what are the rules?
They say Evil never sleeps.
    She had no
idea where to begin with her questions, but then her hand drifted a bit lower,
running along the ridges of his ribs and then lower…and lower until her fingers
ran lightly across the shaft of his tail again. It was lying across his thigh
like a large snake. She tightened her grip on it, marveling at its smooth, soft
power…its magic.
    His tail
responded immediately to her touch.
    “Ah-hah, so
you are awake,” she whispered with a laugh as she increased the pressure of her
touch and then wrapped her hand around his tail, pulling it up like running a
length of rope through her hands until she reached the fleshy, pointed tip. He
moaned softly as, once again, she was filled by an overwhelming compulsion to
bring it up to her mouth.
    Which she did.
     
    ~ * ~
     
    “So?” Claire
said sleepily. “What do we do with the rest of the day…or should I say
‘night?’”
    Claire kicked
aside the tangle of sheets and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the drawn
window shade. She couldn’t begin to describe how she felt except that she had
never felt like this before.
    Ever.
    She was
completely, thoroughly pleasured in ways she had never even imagined or
considered possible. Every other sexual relationship she’d had before now paled
to absolute insignificance…even the ones she thought at the time had been
incredible, like when she dated Robbie Campbell. She felt both exhausted and
exhilarated, as if she had just run a marathon and emerged from a hot tub after
a full-body massage. When she stood up, her legs trembled underneath her, and
she had to sit back down on the edge of the bed to gather her resources. Her
injured foot throbbed with dull pain.
    Mentally, she
was sharp, her mind amazingly clear. Even when she thought about what had
happened last night—that she had almost been raped—there was a peculiar clarity
about the incident that gave her a feeling of acceptance and yes, even
forgiveness and pity for the man who very well may have intended to kill her
after raping her. Claire had been brought up a Catholic, but had drifted away
from the Church as she got older. Kindness, charity and forgiveness were deeply
ingrained in her, nonetheless.
    She got up
from the bed again, feeling a bit more stable on her feet, and began dressing.
All the while, she looked at Samael, who certainly appeared to be asleep. His
eyes were closed, and he was breathing with deep, regular breaths that had the
appearance of being asleep, but the thought crossed her mind that he was not
only not asleep, he could see though his closed eyelids and was